The aims of Thinking Skills are: to provide students with a specific and transferable set of skills for solving problems, to encourage students to apply these skills to realistic situations, and to develop students’ abilities to understand and engage confidently in argument and reasoning. The CIE syllabus organizes these aims into two categories: problem solving and critical thinking. The problem solving component is designed to assess a student’s ability to analyze numerical and graphical information in the context of real life situations and apply appropriate numerical techniques in order to find new information or derive solutions. The critical thinking component is designed to assess a student’s ability to analyze, evaluate, and construct a reasoned argument.

As a curriculum subject, Thinking Skills offers students an excellent opportunity to express themselves in a free and open fashion. Lively debate, critical, and investigative thinking are encouraged in the lessons, coupled with informed and disciplined reasoning.